1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and method for facilitating procurement, logistical planning, human-capital deployment, service-provision requisitioning, service-provision deliverable tracking, financial-transaction data processing, and decision-support analytics pertinent to outsourcing of service-level-agreement (SLA) deliverables or other third-party customer services/equipment requirements.
2. History of Related Art
Many business entities engage in business endeavors that center upon provision of services or goods to a downstream client base. The business entities that provide the services or goods to a downstream client are referred to as primary SLA providers, while the downstream clients to which the goods or services is provided is referred to as SLA clients. In some instances, the services/goods provision is logistically administered through a general maintenance or warranty agreement. In other instances, the nature of infrastructure supported by the primary SLA provider is of a critical nature and cannot be supported by general maintenance or warranty agreements because extended downtimes would be too costly for the SLA client, for example, such as, could be the case with a failed computer system, telecommunications network, or manufacturing production line. For these critical support needs, it is commonplace for the primary SLA provider and the SLA client to govern the terms of services support through a service level agreement (SLA).
In the past, SLA provisioning has typically been performed in-house by the primary SLA provider providing the services or goods, which model enabled the primary SLA provider to control all SLA business functionality. The SLA business functions may include, for example, logistics, contract management, procurement, human-resource deployment, deliverable management, and financial data processing. The modern business environment has experienced a dramatic shift to outsourcing many of the SLA business functions to suppliers that purport to provide provisioning services as a core competency. The suppliers are typically referred to as secondary SLA providers. Although this business model has enabled some business entities to increase service bandwidth, revenues, and profits, introduction of additional provisioning layers has oftentimes resulted in a loss of control, and more often than not profits, for the primary SLA provider.
Although existing efforts have addressed, in minimal fashion, some of the SLA business functions, most approaches have been from an internally-managed vantage point. Therefore, prior solution development has not addressed significant transactional, logistical, data processing, and administrative challenges encountered when outsourcing of the SLA provisioning is considered. There is therefore a need for a system and method by which a primary SLA provider can exercise greater control over SLA business functions while utilizing qualified secondary SLA providers to deliver SLA provisioning services to the SLA clients.